Hot New Vintage Traditional Cowboy Style Leather Horse Tack from Buckaroo Leather

This week Buckaroo Leather Products has had a booth at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Vintage Traditional Leather Horse Tack is back!! Cowboys and Cowgirls at the Cowboy Marketplace at Mandalay Bay Hotel love silver conchas and old west style cowboy leather horse tack. 

Take a look at our latest cowboy gear.....Vaquero style leather horse tack....rawhide.....silver.....and much more.....perfect gifts for that cowboy or cowgirl on your holiday shopping list!

Call Buckaroo John at 530-545-0139 or email buckaroojohn@sbcglobal.net if you are interested in any of the horse tack below.

 

Custom rawhide smokin' black hackamore set with 

soft black Latigo nose with tan accents to coordinate 

with the mecate and antique conchas. 

$279

This amazing American made leather Breast Collar is inspired by the old west style breast collars with large silver conchas.

$489

 All around Breast Collar tooled edge with silver conchas and stainless hardware. Beautiful medium oil honey bridle leather.  Your horse told me he or she wants it!

$159

Our newest black Hermann Oak harness with silver concha accent

Quality Leather Breast collars with Basket combo oak rose carving. Beautiful vintage silver conchas. 

$239 

Close up of the conchas

Oak acorn cowboy shaped slidear with vintage pico edge silver conchas. Start at $189 for silver plate and $299 for sterling silver

Traditional rawhide Riata 49'. Has a wonderful broke in feel. Excellent quality.

$425 

 Supple soft oiled harness with red stitch and antique conchas. 

Breast collar & bridle set.

$199

Quality leather headstalls with vintage traditional 

style silver conchas and buckles and rawhide accents (below)

Tear drop slidears (below) basic styles to traditional styles with silver conchas. Start at $59!

 Our new silver studded Breast Collar & headstall set. 2 piece set for $249.

 

Our family has been dedicated for 30 years in serving the 
Western Horseman the safest most durable Quality 
American made leather horse tack....... Buckaroo John Brand Buckaroo Leather, The Brand to Demand 
Visit Our Unique Store Today
Buckaroo Leather Shopping Site

Buckaroo Leather + a Bohlin Saddle of the "Duke" at NFR this week.....

Buckaroo Leather Products will be 

at the National Finals Rodeo

starting this week, 

Thursday, December 5th to Saturday, December 14th 2013 

in Las Vegas, Nevada.  

Buckaroo Leather products will have a booth at the 

Mandalay Bay Hotel marketplace.

We will have all your favorite leather horse tack like the Cowboy Dressage horse tack, old west style breast collars, reins, and headstalls....including the newest breast collar pictured below.

Buckaroo Leather will also have two amazing saddles.....

This beautiful black saddle is an Edward H Bohlin Saddle. 

(Learn more about Bohlin here). Bohlin was the saddle maker to the old west stars, like Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, and Clayton Moore (the Lone Ranger). 

The story behind the saddle is that it belonged to 

John Wayne and he gave it to either his stuntman or 

sound man after filming True Grit.

 

This brown saddle is a vintage bear trap tree, probably 

a rare Montgomery Ward.

Come see these amazing saddles and say hi to Buckaroo John and shop for the holidays!!! 

Our family has been dedicated for 30 years in serving 
the Western Horseman the safest most durable 
Quality American made leather horse tack....... Buckaroo John Brand Buckaroo Leather, The Brand to Demand 
Visit Our Unique Store Today 
Buckaroo Leather Shopping Site

Ed Bohlin Saddlemaker to the Old West Stars

Eddie Bohlin ran away from home in Orebro, Sweden at age fifteen, hoping to find an apprenticeship as a silversmith. He was unable to find a position and instead worked his way to America on a four-masted schooner, arriving in New York in 1910. As he had been raised with horses, he headed for Montana, where he soon found his first job as a wrangler, rounding up more than nine hundred horses to be sold in Miles City, then the horse trading capital of the world.

For several years Bohlin worked as a cowboy on long cattle drives, both on horseback and as a hand on the freight trains that took cattle to the Chicago stockyards. Bohlin had an aptitude for art, this inspired him to attend the Art Institute in Minneapolis for four months. There he learned the basic concepts that later results in his artistic masterpieces.

Bohlin opened his first silver and saddle shop in Cody, Wyoming, just across the street from Buffalo Bill Cody's Irma Hotel. It was in this shop that he created his first fancy silver-mounted cowboy gear.

While in Billings, Montana, on a buying trip for his shop, an event occurred that changed his life. Billboards around town advertised a vaudeville performance with live horses on the stage, for which he purchased a ticket. Bohlin recognized one of the act's performers from one of his earlier cattle drives and was introduced by him to the show's manager. When Bohlin showed the manger some of his rope tricks that he had picked up along the way, he got hired. The vaudeville act, no matter how small-time, eventually gave Bohlin an unexpected break.

In Los Angeles, while performing at the new Pantages Theatre in 1922, Bohlin heard a loud voice call out from the audience, "Hey kid! What do you want for the coat?" The fellow had spotted Bohlin's coat of black, white and tan calfskin that he had made for himself. "Thirty-five dollars," Bohlin yelled back. When he returned the following night, the coat was gone from his dressing room and in its place was a thirty-five dollar check with Tom Mix's picture and name on it.

                                                         Tom Mix

In those days the cowboy star Tom Mix (1880-1940) was one of Hollywood's most popular actors. Mix asked his friend and business associate, Pat Christman, to invite Bohlin to the studio and to bring some silver and leather goods with him. Tom Mix quickly purchased various items, including the silver decorated boots Bohlin was wearing at the time, for seventy-five dollars. Mix strongly encouraged him to stay on in Hollywood to produce silver and leather items for the studio market.

With this exciting encouragement, Bohlin immediately gave two weeks' notice to the vaudeville troupe's owner and started looking for a place to set up shop. He was fortunate enough to persuade the First Baptist Church in Hollywood to rent him part of their building on the corner of Cahuenga and Selma Avenues.

The rapid success of his business soon required him to move the shop to larger quarters. He occupied a series of addresses on Cahuenga and Selma Avenues, and hired many skilled leather workers and silversmiths to augment his own skills and vision.

Tom Mix, his first great customer and friend in Hollywood, was joined by many other film stars, who assured Bohlin of a built-in clientele. This connection with the studios quickly brought him the job of supplying the Egyptian-style chariot harnesses for Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments," in 1923, and twenty Roman-style chariot harnesses for MGM's 1925 production of "Ben Hur." Another early studio job was supplying two hundred buckskin suits for Universal's 1923 movie "The Days of Daniel Boone." This order alone came to more than four thousand dollars, a huge sum in those days.

Bohlin's relationship with Tom Mix coincided with the beginning of the era of the super fancy movie cowboy, and his skills were matched by Hollywood's demands for spectacular goods in the Western style. In addition to the early custom work he made for Tom Mix, he produced a richly mounted custom saddle, bridle and breast collar for Buck Jones, and a pair of pistols inlaid with gold and silver for William S. Hart.

                                        Roy Rogers and Trigger and his Bohlin Saddle

Soon, every successful Western star had to have Bohlin equipment for personal appearances, parades and the movies themselves. Bohlin's movie cowboy customers over the next thirty years would include Ray "Crash" Corrigan, Ken Maynard, Rex Bell, Will Rogers, Leo Carillo, Monte Montana, Monte Hale, Gene Autry, Charles Starrett, William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy), Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Clayton Moore (the Lone Ranger), and Ronald Reagan.

One of Bohlin's custom saddles was owned by two popular and durable Western actors. Ray "Crash" Corrigan (1902-1976) ordered a special saddle and tack from Bohlin in 1938 which he used in about forty movies. Corrigan appeared in dozens of Westerns and starred with John Wayne in twenty-four episodes of the 1930s serial "The Three Mesquiteers."

Although the fancy saddles Bohlin designed for cowboy stars provided him with great publicity, his stock designs sold to private horsemen were probably his greatest source of day-to-day income. The most luxurious of these made the movie saddles seem understated by comparison. One of the most spectacular of his stock saddles was the "Fiesta" model. In addition to its elaborately tooled leather, the saddle was heavily mounted with chased and engraved silver openwork plates and conchas, and further adorned with eighteen three-color gold steers' heads with ruby-colored gemstone eyes and other gold ornaments.

                                                        Bohlin Fiesta Saddle

Understandably the "Fiesta" model was very expensive. Requiring more than six weeks of work, its list price in the 1941 catalog was $1,255. In 1941 the average cost of a new automobile was $925. (Bohlin's most expensive stock saddle in the 1941 catalog was the "P.K. Wrigley" model. With all of its matching tack, the saddle's list price was $5,750.)

Bohlin also designed and produced nearly ninety percent of the hundreds of silver-mounted parade saddles used in the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California. In all, between 1923 and 1980, the Bohlin Shop designed, produced and sold more than twelve thousand saddles, most of which were extensively adorned with sterling silver ornamentation.

                                                       Bohlin Parade Saddle

Unquestionably the most spectacular and unique example of his artistry was his very own parade saddle, lovingly fabricated with gold and silver over a fourteen-year span and finally completed in 1945. The seventy-pound saddle has gold and silver relief carvings that depict in minute detail scenes of western life and game animals of the Pacific Slope. When completed it was considered the most expensive parade saddle in the world with a value in excess of $125,000. Gene Autry later purchased it for an undisclosed sum. It is now in the collection of the Autry Museum of Western Heritage in Los Angeles.

After more than fifty years in the trade, the old master finally semi-retired in 1972. His longtime employee, Bud Phillips, ran the shop for him. Bohlin later suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed until his death on 28 May 1980.



Our family has been dedicated for 30 years in serving 
the Western Horseman the safest most durable 
Quality American made leather horse tack....... Buckaroo John Brand Buckaroo Leather, The Brand to Demand 
Visit Our Unique Store Today 
Buckaroo Leather Shopping Site